granted, the environment's gotten better, but there are many things we can learn from what happened in 2012. first of all, as difficult as last year may have seemed at times, the overall ipo market was pretty darn robust. in terms of price appreciation, the average new public company was up 20.5% versus 13.4% gain, the s&p 500. in 2012, ipos gave you an average first-day spike of 14.1%, that's not too shabby. however, while the general direction was up, it was a major divergence within 2012's cohort. a lot of winners and quite a few losers too. what separated the winners from losers? what made the difference between an ipo that popped huge on the first day of trading and kept running, and one that did a big fat belly flop? simple, one word, growth. last year the ipos with real sustainable unquestionable growth were the best performers, and this is a dynamic that only continued in 2013 where the market's appetite for growth cannot be sated. consider 2012's best-performing ipos. top eight performers each gave you at least about a double. it's an important list, people. at the top of it i